VEDDAHS, or Weddahs, that is, “Hunters,” a primitive people of Ceylon, probably representing the Yakkos of Sanskrit writers, who appear to have been the true aborigines and the sole inhabitants of the island prior to the Hindu conquest. During the Dutch occupation (1644- 1796) they were met in scattered groups as far north as Jaffna, but are now confined to the south-eastern district, about the wooded Bintenne, Badulla, and Nilgala Hills, and thence to the coast near Batticaloa. They constitute three distinct social groups—the coast people, who are settled and partly civilized, freely intermingling with their Singhalese neighbours; the wild or rock people, who keep entirely aloof, living exclusively on the produce of the chase; and the village people, semi-nomad agriculturists, intermediate in every respect between the other two. The Veddahs are thus in a state of transition from the lowest to a relatively high degree of culture; and their physical appearance gives evidence of their intermediate position between the aboriginal and the intruding races of Ceylon. Virchow finds (1) that the Veddahs and Singhalese have much in common, which is probably due to the intermingling of the aborigines with the Hindu immigrants, as is also suggested by historic and anthropological considerations; (2) that both differ very decidedly from the Tamils of north Ceylon and south India; (3) that the Veddahs show certain analogies with the small dark pre-Dravidian element in this region, which De Quatrefages calls “Negrito,” and which Huxley groups with his “Australoid” division of mankind. The true Veddahs of Bintenne are almost a dwarfish race, averaging about 5 feet (men, 5 feet 2 inches; women, 4 feet 10 inches), with correspondingly low cranial capacity, narrow high ...